Albanese government rejects Senate Report on pandemic royal commission

And part of the reasons as discussed during the Senate committee's hearings are because the government wanted to avoid exposing any of the five Labor states and territories that held office during the pandemic to any detailed scrutiny.

Australia never had a royal commission following the 1919 pandemic because federal-state relations were fractious, Commonwealth powers circumspect and its financial resources limited. Nevertheless, it was a missed opportunity.

Times have changed. The states might retain constitutional responsibility for health, but the Commonwealth now has the money, the capabilities, and the recognised role to lead the nation's health strategies. Such important matters cannot be left to the states. So, not having a royal commission this time is an even greater missed opportunity. Properly constituted and invested with genuine commitment to learn from the pandemic, a joint federal-state royal commission could have laid the foundations for a reinvigorated health system.

Such policy timidity and political opportunism by our national government in not forming a royal commission in stark contrast to the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden and Norway where open, national commissions of inquiry were established so that lessons for the future can be learnt.